To celebrate this year’s Book Week Scotland, we’re running a wee competition we like to call ‘If Book Titles Were Scottish?’ To enter, simply tweet your Scottish translation of a book title including the hashtag #ifbooktitleswerescottish. Those of you without Twitter can email your entry alongside your name but, by doing so, you you consent to us sharing your entry on social media.
Prizes
1st Prize – one copy of Norman Ferguson’s If History was Scottish and one copy of the limited edition Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect: The Luath Kilmarnock Subscribers Edition (worth £40).
2nd Prize – one copy of Norman Ferguson’s If History was Scottish and one £5 voucher to spend on the Luath website.
Here are some examples, included in If History was Scottish for inspiration:
Charles Dickens – No Expectations
DH Lawrence – Lady Chatterley’s Liver
Alexander Solzhenitsyn – A Day in the Life of Ivan Doesnidaeashift
JRR Tolkien – Lord of the Sovvy Rings
Hubert Selby Jr – Last Exit to Broxburn
Ernest Hemingway – The Sun Never Rises
Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Walker
JRR Tolkien – The Crabbit
Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Shiteness of Being
John Steinbeck – The Capes of Wrath
Yann Martel – Life of Pie
Ian McEwan – A tenement
Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveller’s Bidie-In
Amy Tan – The Nae Luck Club
Harper Lee – To Fry a Mockingbird
Charlotte Bronte – Jane Ayr
Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Weans
John le Carré – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Clipe
Jean-Paul Sartre – The Boak
Louise May Alcott – Big Wummin
The Prizes
If History was Scottish takes an alternative look at notable figures and events as seen through a unique Caledonian perspective. The attributes associated with being Scottish are applied to well-known quotes and events. Covering topics such as war, politics, cinema, religion and more, the text is accompanied by light-hearted and witty illustrations making this an ideal gift both in Scotland and further afield.
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was not only the first collection of poems produced by Robert Burns, it was also the only book of his work published in his lifetime. The Luath Kilmarnock Edition is a faithful replica of that original book, published in Ayrshire’s capital in 1786. In an echo of the original publication, only 612 copies of this special subscribers edition were printed, and each one has been numbered and signed by actor, writer and Burns expert, John Cairney, and by Clark McGinn – president of the Burns Club of London and author of The Ultimate Burns Supper Book and The Ultimate Guide to Being Scottish.